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Definition of "quarantine" []

  • A period of time during which a vehicle, person, or material suspected of carrying a contagious disease is detained at a port of entry under enforced isolation to prevent disease from entering a country. (noun)
  • A place for such detention. (noun)
  • Enforced isolation or restriction of free movement imposed to prevent the spread of contagious disease. (noun)
  • A condition of enforced isolation. (noun)
  • A period of 40 days. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "quarantine" in a sentence
  • "Anything in quarantine is safely segregated from the rest of your computer, it cannot run from there, so it can do no harm."
  • "The people of Waterford would have to pray that the word quarantine would be interpreted to their advantage, and that all who read the sign would assume that the sickness was worse within the town than without."
  • "In my view, establishing what he called a quarantine, what the world thought of as a blockade, and preventing if you will the Soviet Union from placing nuclear missiles in Cuba, that was certainly self-defense, it was certainly anticipatory self - defense, it was certainly preventative, and we were very close to a crisis of historic proportions."